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Small Teams Squeezed to Side of the Road

BRISTOL, Tenn., March 25 - The space inside the half-mile oval at Bristol Motor Speedway is so small that there is not enough room along pit road for all the teams that try to qualify for a Nascar Nextel Cup race.

So on Friday, the handful of low-budget hopefuls not guaranteed a spot in the Food City 500 on Sunday were crammed behind the cars of Nascar's elite.

It seemed an appropriate place for those so-called field fillers of the Nextel Cup. They are the teams on the periphery of the business. They are in a chase of their own to qualify and race well enough, often with lesser equipment, to attract the attention of a big-money sponsor.

They are dreamers, because they have to be.

"Right now we're small," said Stanton Barrett, who has made the field for 16 Cup races since 1999, including a race in California on Feb. 26. "I plan to, next year and the following years, to grow each year. Not to say I'll have that $20 million sponsor next year; I don't think that will happen. But I think in five years, we'll be at that point. That's the goal."

It is what many are seeking, but it is tough to see that finish line from the back of the field or from the driver's seat of a hauler on its way home after a driver fails to make a race.

That is the weekly gamble of these field fillers, who are not guaranteed a spot in each week's race because they are not in the top 35 in points. Those outside the top 35 must battle in qualifying for the remaining eight berths in each 43-car field.

Barrett, driving the Hairofdog.com Chevrolet, is among the drivers without big sponsorship dollars or a lock on a qualifying spot who show up week after week hoping to make the field. He is a Hollywood stuntman by trade, having worked in movies like "Spider-Man," "Spider-Man 2," "Dukes of Hazzard" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith."

His brother, David, is a Hollywood director and his father, Stan Barrett, was a stuntman and racecar driver who boasted that he was the first to break the sound barrier and reach Mach 1 on the ground with a speed of 739.666 miles an hour in the Budweiser Rocket in 1979.

Stanton Barrett has made one of four races so far.

Kirk Shelmerdine was one of the few field fillers to qualify for the Daytona 500 (he finished 20th), although a lack of money has kept him away from the track since.

Hermie Sadler made the Daytona 500, too, finishing 40th and collecting $245,633. He followed that by missing out in California and Las Vegas before making the field at Atlanta for Monday's rain-delayed Cup race.

"It's very, very difficult and I think, personally, it gets more difficult every week," said Sadler, the older brother of the Cup regular Elliott Sadler. "It's almost been like, when you don't make the race, it's almost like losing a member of the family."

Sadler, Barrett, Shelmerdine and others like Mike Garvey, Chad Chaffin, Kenny Wallace and Derricke Cope are slowly being squeezed out of Cup competition. As the sport gains in popularity, well-funded teams are expanding with top sponsorship from the start. That leaves fewer spots for the smaller teams.

"It's more of a progression of better teams," Nascar's vice president for competition, Robin Pemberton, said. "You had probably 10 decent teams 20 years ago."

Some field fillers claim Nascar's decision to lock in the top 35 each week punishes them even if they can put together a qualifying run that is better than some of the regulars. Pemberton disagrees, saying the rule still guarantees they will have a shot to qualify each week if they are good enough.

Among the victims of that policy is Morgan Shepherd. Once a highly competitive driver in the Cup series who finished in the top 10 in points three times in his career, Shepherd has been trying to build a Victory in Jesus race team. In 2004, Shepherd made the field for 19 races and earned nearly $1.1 million while spreading the word. But after Nascar changed the rules, Shepherd qualified for only four races last year. He has not made a field this year.

"My deal is, the ministry end of it, being able to expose the name of Jesus on a car, and we just see a great opportunity in Nascar to reach people worldwide," Shepherd said. "It's not going to be easy. We'll go as long as we can trying to do this. I'm not a quitter because I could have quit a long time ago, but I have a goal in life and that's to make life better for somebody else and that's the reason I'm here."

He did not reach his goal at Bristol, either. When rain washed out qualifying Friday, the field was automatically set by points already accumulated.